OUR Mother, loved of all thy sons Life-long the bitter blue they stem, Till custom makes it almost fair; Sweet grow the splintering gales to them, The icy gloom, the scorching glare. But thy dear eyes, which shine for all, They see not, save through homesick tears, Or when thy smile, through battle-pall, Pays death and all their painful years. Fair freedom's gospel soundeth now Through softer lips than those of steel; Rust gathers on the iron prow, And shore weeds clog the resting keel; To-day thou askest life, not death; Our lives, for life and death, are thine: Sweet are long years, and peaceful breath, And sunny age beneath its vine; But there are those that deem more fair Yet, being thine, we shall be brave, And, being thine, we will be true; O To lie in long grasses! O to dream of the plain! Where the west wind sings as it passes Where the rank grass wallows and tosses, To watch the gay gulls as they flutter To the harsh, shrill creak of the crickets, And the song of the lark and the bee. O far-off plains of my west land! THE MEADOW LARK A BRAVE little bird that fears not God, A voice that breaks from the snow-wet clod With prophecy of sunny sod, Set thick with wind-waved goldenrod. From the first bare clod in the raw, cold spring, From the last bare clod, when fall winds sting, The farm-boy hears his brave song ring, And work for the time is a pleasant thing. 1 Copyright, 1899, by THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. |